I'm still stuck on the whole 30% tax. How is that considered even remotely reasonable?
Further, how much do you think should this be (20%? 10%? 5%?) and if zero, why?
Finally, do you believe Apple should be compensated for the services and marketplace that they are offering, if so, what other strategies do you recommend that they deploy to make everyone happy?
1. https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external...
The link you provided is only for "Referral fee", not whatever fee charges to fulfill the order (ie. warehousing and shipping), which is separate: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external...
Because it doesn't have to compete with third-party distributors like MacOS? The App Store on MacOS is almost entirely empty, every real developer abandoned it years ago. It's almost impossible to buy professional Mac software on the App Store, because real developers like Avid or Adobe or Affinity don't think Apple's deal is fair either.
> Finally, do you believe Apple should be compensated for the services and marketplace that they are offering
They already are, through their developer fees. If Apple can't compensate themselves without forcing people to use their services, then they need to redesign their business model.
Installing software is not a service, arguably Apple has no right to demand compensation for it in the first place.
Who are the third party distributors for the playstation or xbox?
>They already are, through their developer fees.
It's $100/developer. Considering Microsoft used to charge thousands for Visual Studio, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to claim that $100/year is too low.
>If Apple can't compensate themselves without forcing people to use their services, then they need to redesign their business model.
What's wrong with royalty fee based business models?
>Installing software is not a service, arguably Apple has no right to demand compensation for it in the first place.
Right, which is why Apple characterizes the fee as "core technology fee", ie. for access to its tools and SDKs, not for access to the store.
Plenty. The retail Xbox has supported sideloading for almost a decade now: https://www.howtogeek.com/703443/how-to-put-your-xbox-series...
Nintendo Switch has fully distributed homebrew stores too.
> It's $100/developer.
They can charge more if they don't think they're milking developers enough. They only have, what, a few million of them worldwide.
> What's wrong with royalty fee based business models?
Nothing, if they are forced to compete with other royalty-based services that set a fair baseline price. Otherwise everything is wrong with it. MacOS did this right, although admittedly the App Store didn't quite survive the gauntlet of competition.
Imagine if your favorite band could only make money by signing to a single record label. Do you think their talent would be valued fairly? Do you think they would be respected for who they are, or do you think their likeness would be molested in whichever way was the most profitable for the label?
If that counts as "sideloading", you might as well count the free 7 day signing option that iOS offers (used by alt store) "sideloading".
>Nintendo Switch has fully distributed homebrew stores too.
Officially?
>Nothing, if they are forced to compete with other royalty-based services that set a fair baseline price.
See my previous comments. Apple's claim is that the fee isn't for distribution, it's for access to the SDKs. It's unclear how "if they are forced to compete with other royalty-based services that set a fair baseline price" would work in this case. Epic offers Unreal Engine for free, with the expectation that they'll recoup the money via royalties. That sounds like a lot like Apple's SDKs.
>Imagine if your favorite band could only make money by signing to a single record label.
That's what happens for most bands though? There's typically a exclusivity period, and some artists might stick with a given label their entire lives.
This is a whataboutism. People can discuss Apple's anti-competitive business policies separately from Sony's and Microsoft's. (Does it matter that Playstation and Xbox ecosystems are potentially similarly anti-competitive? That just means the circumstances around their policies should also be scrutinized for the same reasons.)
> it doesn't seem too unreasonable to claim that $100/year is too low
It doesn't seem too unreasonable to tell them tough shit. They can improve their business model themselves; that's their responsibility. It is also their responsibility to avoid anti-competitive business practices.
> What's wrong with royalty fee based business models?
This is a disingenuous question in reply to the pull quote you included from the parent comment. They wrote "without forcing people to use their services". That is the primary anti-competitive thing that people complain about with Apple.
Nintendo for example has NDA where you cannot even share online how much they take.
Also it's not a tax, though arguably it can be termed an "economic rent" (a technical term) that can be considered excessive, but I'm not sure about that.
Same reason any company can't set whatever they want. Vast majority of companies aren't deemed monopolies so this doesn't apply to them but this restriction holds over them once they grow to a certain size nonetheless. Even the most ardent capitalists/free market advocates agree that monopolies have to be regulated by the government.
The real questions are what makes company a monopoly. You can always argue you aren't a monopoly but it's what convinces people that makes most sense and many people are beginning to be convinced that Apple/Google etc are monopolies in certain markets.
It sounds like you are implying that a monopoly classification would somehow be relevant to fee/pricing strategy?
The reality is that every company that has a hardware/software ecosystem has some form of AppStore. Sony, Nintendo, Valve, etc. Should we consider them all to be monopolies of their store? For fun, let's say they all are.
In order for that monopoly classification to have some impact, it would have to be used in an anti competitive way.
Let's say Nintendo wants 20%, Valve wants 30%, and Sony wants 40% of an apps sales price. You adjust your price for each platform, the software costs more on Steam Deck and PlayStation. Are Valve and Sony using their stores in an anti competitive way by charging more than Nintendo? I don't see how. It is not anti competitive for Sony to charge developers more.
An example of something anti competitive would be Sony telling you that you can only put things up in their shop if it's exclusive to Sony.
Exactly this. There's no competition, because Apple blocks iPhone owners from installing apps through any method other than their App Store (in the US, where this lawsuit is being filed). It's a programmatically-enforced monopoly.
Frankly I'd much rather change that situation than quibble about exactly how much Apple is allowed to charge for their services. Let them charge whatever they want in a free market where they have to compete on a level playing field with everyone else. If developers don't like it, they can use a competing app store to sell their software to iPhone users.
And regulating Apple is quite different from regulating someperson. If you made a Linux phone in your basement, nobody would tell you what kind of charger you should use. But companies that claim ownership of a substantial economy and can dictate the rights and culture and economic output for a large section of society do need to have more checks on their power than just, "Well if I'm so wrong, then why do I have so much money? Maybe you should make your own phone that won't work well with anyone else's and see if you can sell it."
App fees have basically been the same amount for all time. Literally every single developer looked at the numbers and decided to go into business.